


and then they’re gone

by VeryImportantDemon



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Aubrey and Duck are mentioned, Gen, I just have a lot of fuckin feelings about Ned Fucking Chicane okay, Merle is mentioned, Ned Chicane is a good guy, Ned’s death, Taako is mentioned (and alive), introspective kind of thing, magnus is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24799597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeryImportantDemon/pseuds/VeryImportantDemon
Summary: You open your eyes, which is funny because you never remembered closing them, and the stars are back. Flickering, glittering, shining in the night sky above you. No trees break up the view. It’s just stars and they’re just as beautiful as they were.And then someone says your name.“Edmund Kelly Chicane.”Or: Ned dies. Kravitz comes to collect.
Relationships: Edmund "Ned" Chicane & Aubrey Little & Duck Newton, Edmund “Ned” Chicane & Kravitz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	and then they’re gone

**Author's Note:**

> Was Ned Chicane’s death one of the most well-written if not the most well-written one I’ve ever come across? Yes. Am I over it? Fuck no. Do I love Ned (and Duck, and Aubrey) with all my heart and soul???? Absolutely.

Mama’s yelling at you. She’s not your mama, not really, but she’s Mama and she’s something to you. Something important. She gave you purpose, in a way. She gave you Aubrey. She gave you a chance to be a better person than you were the rest of your life. 

She gave you, indirectly, this moment. This moment to make a choice. This moment to decide what kind of person Edmund Kelly Chicane was going to be. She gave you a moment that counted. And you squandered a lot of moments in your life, but you didn’t want to lose this one. 

Hopefully, you didn’t. But you’ll never know because you aren’t feeling much anymore while Mama’s yelling. Your back is real wet and then you’re real cold and then you aren’t even cold. You’re just nothing. You’re just nothing and Mama’s yelling. 

Then maybe she’s not yelling anymore but she’s looking right at you and she’s trembling a little bit and her mouth is moving. You aren’t paying any attention to her, though. Not because you don’t want to but because you can’t make yourself. You just aren’t working like you used to. You can only make out one word and it’s your name.  _ Ned,  _ she says. Just your name. Just Ned. She’s saying something else and it must not be Ned because you just can’t hear it anymore. 

There’s something, though. Something that’s not Mama. You just hear the wind. And then you’re not even looking at her, you’re looking up, and you see the stars. You can’t even see the tree branches reaching up into the sky and splitting and fracturing it into countless pieces. You just see the stars above you. 

They are beautiful. 

And then… They’re gone. 

***

You open your eyes, which is funny because you never remembered closing them, and the stars are back. Flickering, glittering, shining in the night sky above you. No trees break up the view. It’s just stars and they’re just as beautiful as they were.

And then someone says your name. 

“Edmund Kelly Chicane.”

“Ned, please,” you say and for some reason your voice works. You sit up and there’s a man in front of you. You don’t know him because you’d definitely remember a tall, broad-shouldered man in what looked like a suit with a black cape draped around his shoulders. In one hand he is holding a scythe. He has dark skin and dreadlocks and even though his eyes are dark, too, they still manage to be welcoming. 

“Ned, then,” the strange man says, amused. But he isn’t the only strange thing about the scene. Everything is still, impossibly still. Not even the leaves on the trees are trembling and you remember, somehow, wind. You are exactly where you’d seen that glowing coffin and the crowd of townspeople who weren’t always your townspeople but they’d adopted you and you’d adopted them, where you slammed into Dani who couldn’t be Dani, where Barclay dragged her away, where Pigeon… 

Where Pigeon shot you. 

Where you saw the stars. 

Where you died. 

The dark-skinned man chuckles softly. “Everyone has that moment,” he says. He holds out his hand to you and you find yourself reaching up to take it. He pulls you to your feet. 

You dust off your pants with your broad, lined hands and then you turn around. Where you’d just been laying there was a large, dark patch of blood. Your blood. You turn back towards the man. 

“Who the fuck are you?” you say.

“Kravitz,” he says. “And you’re a hero.”

You laugh at that, shaking your head. “And you’re crazy,” you say. “Me? A hero? In what world?” 

“This one,” Kravitz said. “And mine. I knew someone awhile ago. He was very brave, one of the bravest people I’ve ever known. He said once that a hero is someone who acts when it counts, acts at the right moment, acts when it’s needed. And I’d say you definitely fall into that.”

“Huh,” you say. You weren’t really thinking when you tackled Dani. You just knew that it was something you had to do. You had to save Dani, save the townspeople who’d taken you into their fold and held you. You had to save Duck and  _ Aubrey.  _ So you did it, even knowing as you heard the gunshot ring out that it was your name on that bullet. You did it because you were atoning for your past sins, making the best choice you’d ever made. The best thing you ever could’ve done. You were doing it because it was what Duck would’ve done.

“So I’m finally a hero,” you say. “Took me long enough.”

Kravitz smiles again and he doesn’t speak for a beat, so you do. 

“So, are you Death?” you ask. “Because I’m pretty sure I’m dead at this point.”

“Sort of,” Kravitz says. “I’m a Reaper. I’m here to take you on.” 

“Take me on,” you say. 

“Yeah,” Kravitz says. 

“Where’s on?” you ask. 

“I’m not really sure. I just take people there,” Kravitz explains. “I’ve never, you know… Died.” 

“Ha,” you say. “Guess I really am headed off into parts unknown.”

Kravitz nods at you even though you know he doesn’t  _ really  _ understand. 

You take a deep breath and look around this clearing again. There’s no one there, no one except you and the reaper, and it’s still so  _ still.  _ “Are they going to be alright?” you find yourself saying without realizing your speaking. 

Kravitz seems to realize that  _ they  _ means the people important to you. “Do you want the truth?” Kravitz asks. 

“Yeah,” you say. “Lay it on me.”

“I really think so,” he says. “I think they’re going to be amazing.”

You smile softly when you think about that, when you think about the carefully folded letters with their names on it. They are going to be amazing. They deserve to be amazing.

“Can I see them?” you say. 

Kravitz shakes his head, almost a little sadly. “I’m sorry,” he says. You expected that, but you figured you should ask anyway. Just in case.

“Can I ask you another dumb question, Mr. Reaper?” you say.

“Kravitz,” he says. “But yes.”

“What was it…” You trail off. “What was it  _ for? _ ”

Kravitz smiles again, shows straight white teeth. “I’ve heard that one before,” he says, “and I’ve had a lot of time to think about. I think… I think it was for joy, and for love. Another friend of mine from a long time ago, he said that… That at the end of the day, all you have is looking back on the joy you have and the joy you made and the joy you gave other people. I think it’s about making a little more joy in the world than it had before you left. Just making the whole thing just a little bit better. And I think it’s about love, too. About loving with everything you have because love makes everything a little better.”

You think about Aubrey and Duck and your car and Boyd and Victoria and the Cryptonomica and Kirby. You loved some people and you loved some things and you can only hope that even with all of the evil you put out into the world that you made a little bit of joy, too. 

“That friend of yours seems really smart,” you say. 

Kravitz laughs again and the sound almost puts you at ease. “He was,” Kravitz says.

“Did you love?” you ask the reaper. “Did you make joy? Make the world better?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I did. I have a husband. I love him quite a lot. I have friends that are still around and friends that have been gone for a long, long time. But I loved them and I still do. And I liked to think I made at least a little bit of joy.” 

“Did I?” you say. You’re suddenly seized by the desire to know that you meant something. That the pain you caused, that the good things you did and the people you met whose lives you changed meant something. 

“I think so,” Kravitz says. “I really think you did.”

You stand still for a moment, breathing in and out, and that’s all that you hear. You look at your hands, and then your shoes and then the grass and then you look up at the stars again. That makes you smile. They really are beautiful, even now. Even here. You hope Duck and Aubrey are seeing those same stars. 

“Are you ready to go?” Kravitz asks. He holds out a hand towards you, the other shifting on his scythe. He lifts it and tears open a rift. There’s something glittering beyond it, something almost as beautiful as the stars. 

“Yeah, sure,” you say. You did the best you could. You did some bad, but you did some good, too, and that has to be worth something. “Let’s get outta here.” 

You take your reaper’s outstretched hand and step through the rift, to parts unknown. You’re still thinking about those stars until you’re gone.


End file.
